


Send them off!

by sinelanguage



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Humor, Insecurity, M/M, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:06:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9243272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinelanguage/pseuds/sinelanguage
Summary: Lance is running from friendship with Keith, and he doesn’t exactly know why.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Stella for looking at an initial draft of this, and letting me yell through my plotting problems. You're the best.

Lance should think of a reply. Hunk’s been staring at him for a good solid minute, quizzically and apprehensive, as Lance pretends that this whole conversation isn’t shaking him to the poorly constructed foundations of his core.

The conversation had _started_ well and normal enough. Keith hadn’t come up until about three-fourths the way in, and when he did, Lance had huffed and waved his hand and tried to move on from the topic of Keith. Hunk had questioned him, Lance had dodged with some well-done jabs at Keith’s expense, and Hunk- well.

Hunk said that that wasn’t a way to treat _friends._

“What? Keith and I aren’t friends,” Lance says. Hunk looks at him, the same look he gave him every time he procured an obviously wrong answer in physics class. It’s a soft pinch of the eyebrows, half a wince, and eyes darting away, looking for way to lessen the blow of what he’s saying. To Lance, it’s utterly dismissive, crushing, a harsh blow to his admittedly easily woundable pride.

“You kind of are. I mean- you keep _saying_ you’re not, but those are just- well, they’re just words.”

Lance tries to keep his position, arms crossed and stance wide and exuding confidence and rightfulness. However, he falters under the sheer wrongness of Hunk’s statement. His persona breaks, he flails his arms around manically, and he swats at the air like he can physically knock down Hunk’s statement.

He tries to keep his dignity.

He does not succeed.

Still swatting at the air, Lance’s next words come out in a squeak of a voice, “I mean- I’m trying to beat him! I _am_ beating him- ugh- he’s not my friend. The guy hates me!”

Hunk gives him an even worse physics class look- this time, it’s the look he gave when Lance bragged about his answers on the test. It’s pity. It’s the post-test pity look. “Uh, well, that’s factually wrong.”

“Nu- _uh,_ ” says Lance. He’s losing this argument, and he knows it. Hunk knows it, too.

“I don’t know why you’re fighting this?” Hunk says, voice upticking at the end of his non-question. “I mean- it’s not like it’s doing either of you any _good._ You just- poke his buttons more,” Hunk pauses. He looks slightly uncomfortable, like he’s sharing a secret. “And I think he’s really- confused. About whatever it is you’re doing.”

Lance hasn’t gathered up his dignity. It still lays before him, ungathered and helplessly ungatherable.

“It _is_ confusing, whatever it is you’re doing,” Hunk says. “You should probably figure it out before it, uh, affects Voltron.”

Hunk knows that’s not the real concern here- Lance can tell, by the way he scratches the back of his neck and dodges his conclusion. It’s an excuse, for something Lance doesn’t know. That annoys him, more than anything, but, maybe it annoys him less than continuing this conversation.

“Okay,” Lance says. It’s a hesitant okay. A probing okay. An okay to gauge if this conversation can go bury itself in the grave it belongs in.

“Okay,” Hunk repeats. The conversation is buried, maybe hastily, but it’s under the ground, and its gravestone marks its awful, five-minute existence.

“Just try to talk to him, like, reasonably, sometime? You’re being, uh, pretty unreasonable about this.”

Lance sighs, and he mentality crosses off the deceased date on the grave. He doesn’t know how to un-chisel a gravestone; he’ll just have to add on a tacky addendum later. And when the conversation does finally die, the crossed-off date will linger with him, reminding him it could, maybe, come back to life.

“Fine, fine,” Lance says. “I’ll talk to Keith about _why_ he thinks we’re _friends._ ”

Hunk sighs, but he doesn’t reprimand Lance. Probably, because he knows as long as this isn’t buried, it’s still alive, a zombie conversation to haunt the back of Lance’s mind. And it could, horrifyingly, stay that way, even in the grave.

After Hunk leaves, Lance sighs, too. He shakes his head, stretches, and tries to forget all about this.

* * *

Lance makes sure that the whole conversation-that-didn’t happen doesn’t come up, ever, even in the back of his mind. He’s doing a good job of it, so far, throwing himself into more training than he would ever normally do voluntarily, but he’s not willing to throw himself _entirely_ into training.

Once his muscles ache and his sides heave, he scampers back to the kitchen for a nice, hard-earned, drink-that-kind-of-tastes-like-lemonade.

It’s not exactly lemonade. There’s a tang to it that lemonade doesn’t quite provide, and there’s some mysterious sour kick and the end of each gulp that may or may not be actually damaging to his innards. Lance doesn’t care; he cherishes this not-lemonade close. This not-lemonade makes him live his life on the edge.

Pouring himself a sizable glass, he lounges himself on the nearest chair, feet on the table. He leans back, tipping the chair just a tad, and prepares himself for the most rewarding lemonade of his life thus far.

He’s about five minutes into his drink, when Keith tarnishes the perfect moment with his presence.

Keith enters the kitchen, mulling around in the cooler for who-knows-what. Lance watches him, eyes narrowed and straw to his lemonade pinched between his lips. Keith picks up the container of lemonade and shakes it a bit.

He’s going to take the last of it. Lance releases his straw to protest, but Keith simply places the lemonade back in the fridge, expression disturbed. Instead, he pulls out the boring old water packs, shakes that too, and opens it.

Keith, Lance realizes with a mix of relief and annoyance, doesn’t like lemonade. Of course he doesn’t- only, like, horrible people didn’t like lemonade. It must be too sour for him. It must have too much bite. Maybe Keith has enough sourness and enough bite already, and that’s why he doesn’t like lemonade.

What a jerk.

Before Lance can enunciate that well-formed thought, Keith sits down. There’s a lot of chairs for Keith to sit in, but he chooses the one right next to Lance. Lance glares, but Keith doesn’t notice. He’s brought with him the water pack and an Altean tablet, and most importantly, he sits in the chair the same way Lance does.

Lance takes a long drink, making sure to pull out his straw enough to make a loud, raspy noise when he finishes his swig of lemonade.

Infuriatingly, Keith doesn’t spare him a look. In fact, Keith doesn’t even seem to relax. He reads with the same intensity as he fights, eyes scanning the page like he would a battlefield. He doesn’t skim; he interrogates the tablet. It’s kind of baffling.

Keith never struck Lance as a sit down and read guy, but he did have some books in that shack in the desert. There must’ve not been enough to do there, that he has to attack books like he does.

Lance reads, sure, but reads like a proper person. He reads the last two pages to make sure he’d like the ending. Then, he skims over the boring non-essential exposition bits, finishes the book in record time, and spoils the ending, the middle, and the exciting bits for Hunk.

The way Keith’s reading- with ardent concentration and willpower- just isn’t the proper way to read a book and, more imperatively, relax.

After two more noisy sips of lemonade, Lance has had enough with Keith’s nonsensical presence.

Tipping his chair back down, Lance grounds his feet back on the floor. He eyes Keith, who hasn’t seemed to even notice him. Then, he sets his feet on Keith’s chair, pushing it away. His feet remained, splay against Keith’s thigh; he’s not going to give up his valuable footrest just because Keith’s there.

Lance wriggles his toes, for good measure, making sure they thrum against Keith’s leg. Keith twitches, looking at Lance’s toes with a furrowed brow and straight-lined not-smile, then continues to read the tablet.

Every now and then, his concentration will break. He’ll look back to Lance, or to Lance’s feet, and sink into the chair. Lance snorts the first time he does, gleeful at his success at getting Keith to read a book like any normal person should. Keith only spares him another smile.

Leaning back, Lance stretches against the back of his chair, and enjoys the rest of his not-really-lemonade lemonade in the quiet of the room. Despite Keith being there, it’s oddly comfortable.

* * *

Lance does not, in fact, forget all about Hunk’s conversation. He does the opposite of forgetting all about it, which is to let it stew in the messy cauldron that is the back of his mind until it boils over and destroys the rest of his helpless brain matter.

He doesn’t want to be friends with Keith. That kind of ruins the whole point of being rivals with Keith. And this bothers Lance, more than even the idea of being friends with Keith. He doesn’t even know _why,_ but it makes him itch like a constellation of mosquito bites.

The problem is, his first instinct is to talk to Hunk about it. Hunk, who caused this train of thought in the first place. Hunk, who knows more than Lance does, but doesn’t say he knows more than Lance does, and won’t budge any new information.

His mental checklist of people to talk to runs out, fast. Pidge is out- she would never let him hear the end of this, or, alternatively, would not let him get two words out. Shiro is automatically out, since he probably would encourage Keith friendship. Allura is out for similar reasons, with more emphasis on team compatibility than warm, fuzzy feelings.

Keith, naturally, is out. He wasn’t even on the list of options in the first place, because, primarily, he _didn’t like Keith._

He’s left with one last inhabitant of the castle ship, and that’s Coran. Not the worst option- he might make the same accept-this-for-Voltron argument, but he also might say something useful.

It takes a while to snatch Coran’s train of thought from describing mundane aspects of the last planet they visited in loving detail. Once he does, Lance readies himself for the bomb he’s about to drop.

“So Coran,” Lance says. Coran opens his mouth to respond, but Lance responds faster. “I bet you know a lot of rumors, from everyone else. A lot of rumors about everyone else.”

Coran looks uncomfortable, trying to read into Lance’s look. Lance tries to smile innocently, but it probably comes out wrong. He’s nervous, and can’t keep his smile into anything but a half-wince.

Before Coran can straight-up deny this line of questioning, Lance makes his bomb-dropping move. “There’s rumors! That Keith and I,” Lance pauses. Coran seems even more worried, and he scratches the back of his neck. Lance lowers his voice for emphasis. “That we’re friends. Hunk says we’re _friends._ ”

Coran laughs, quiet and a bit relieved. Lance bristles, eyes narrowed and waiting for a response. He has a feeling he’s not going to like it.

“You mean to tell me you and Keith _aren’t_ friends?” Coran says.

“Yes!” Lance yells. He waves his arms around wildly, trying to communicate multiple distraught gestures at once. “We’re not- we’re not friends. Totally not friends.”

Frustratingly, Coran doesn’t seem perturbed or convinced by Lance’s protests.

Lance huffs. “It’s slander,” he mutters. It’s probably hypocritical from someone who just asked for gossip, but certain things are worth being hypocritical for. Mainly, things he cares about.

“We’re not friends,” Lance continues, before Coran can counter him. There’s a pitiful warble in his voice. “We’re really not. We’re rivals, we can’t be friends.”

“Now, those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Coran says. He frowns, looking contemplative instead of amused.

“Of course they’re- uh- of course I’m only his rival,” Lance continues. “I… he...” He expects to have an argument to back that but, but his mouth opens and closes and no words come out. There’s just something inherently _wrong_ about that statement, and he doesn’t know what. It’s not even on the tip of his tongue.

“-Lance?”

Whatever Coran says next, Lance ignores, as he speed out of the room to find someone who won’t disagree with his obviously correct opinions. Maybe he could go find the mice.

* * *

Lance doesn’t find the mice.

While the mice are a tempting option, he figures they have to be tiny, pint-sized gossips. There’s no way, not with a mental link to Allura, they wouldn’t at least inform her. And talking to Allura was already off the table, so by proxy, the mice had to be, too.

However, there’s a limit to how long Lance can stew without at least complaining to someone. He tries complaining to his own reflection, but that’s just sad, and it just makes him more frustrated.

He doesn’t know why the idea of being friends with Keith puts him off so much. It’s perfectly reasonable to _not_ want to be friends with him. He was infuriatingly good- decent- at things, he never thought things through and it somehow worked out for him, and overall his Keith-ness is an indescribable blight on the entire universe.

“We’re not friends,” Lance repeats into the mirror.

He blears at his own reflection. He doesn’t look as certain as he wants. Then, he tries to comb down the cowlick on top of his head.

Something knocks at the door as he does, and he yanks his own hair in surprise.

“H-hey!” says Lance, “Come on, the door’s _locked_.”

“I knocked,” comes a voice that Lance sadly recognizes as Keith’s. “And you’ve been hogging the bathroom.” There’s a long pause, and a sigh. “ _Again._ ”

“I’m busy, I’m-” Lance’s train of thought crashes. This isn’t a discussion he can discuss, not with Keith himself. “I’m _thinking_.”

Keith doesn’t respond. Just as Lance thinks he’s left, and thanks the universe’s sense of justice, something knocks on the door again. It’s not the same knock as last time, instead it sounds like Keith’s leaned against the bathroom door.

“You’re thinking,” Keith repeats. “About _what_?”

“I can think!” Lance yells. The door rickets again, and, frustrated, Lance unlocks the bathroom and throws open the door.

Lance wants it to catch Keith of guard, but it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. While Keith was leaning against the door, he doesn’t lose his balance like Lance wants him to. He stumbles a bit, catches himself, and looks at Lance with pinched eyebrows.

“I wasn’t trying to…” Keith trails off. He looks up to the top of Lance’s head, where his hair sticks straight up. “You’ve been acting weird recently.”

“Have not,” Lance says, not even giving Keith a beat’s pause.

“You’ve been in the bathroom for two hours and it doesn’t even look like you’ve combed your hair.”

“-haha, like you can talk-” Lance motions to Keith’s head. His hair looks combed, probably more combed that the yanked hair Lance has right now, but it’s his point and he’s sticking with it.

It doesn’t even phase Keith. “Lance,” he reprimands.

Lance, hackles successfully raised, puffs himself up to egg a response he wants out of Keith. Keith looks taken aback, but doesn’t take the _bait,_ and Lance lets his complaining loose.

“I’m annoyed!” Lance says. He enunciates it with a righteous hand gesture, something wild and all over the place. “I’m _trying_ to figure something out, and I can’t talk to anyone about it, because everyone’s giving me the _wrong advice_ -”

“So they’re giving you advice you don’t want to hear,” Keith says. He’s trying to read Lance, stare piercing and sticking there. It’s unnerving, and Lance feels the back of his neck heat up, along with his ears and his entire face.

With another gesture, Lance says, “Exactly!”

“They could be right,” Keith says.

Lance looks evenly at Keith. He’s standing with his arms crossed, and Lance feels pined. “They could _not_ ,” Lance says.

Waiting for an insult or a barbed comeback, Lance prepares himself for the worst. He eyes Keith with a glare he hopes comes off as threatening.

Instead, Keith just stares right through Lance. “Who have you talked to about,” Keith pauses, “Whatever’s worked you up.”

“Everyone relevant,” Lance says quickly. He can’t hold his impressive, threatening stature for long.

“You could talk to me about your...” Keith pauses again, “Your problems.”

Lance can’t complain to Keith about Keith. But if he doesn’t complain to someone about Keith, he’s going to combust. He can only wind down internal thought processes by himself before he gets lost. And he doesn’t want to get lost on this one; there’s too many awful, terrible places he could end up.

Beggars can’t be choosers; Keith will have to do.

“Everyone’s wrong about something,” Lance starts again, before he can regret this decision. “Like, totally wrong. No one’s ever been more wrong.”

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what-”

“-and I think I’m like, maybe, not right about it,” Lance continues. Maybe Keith will get annoyed with him and leave. “Or not completely right about it. Like half-right. I’m more right than everyone else, they’re still _wrong._ ”

Tilting his head to the side, Keith’s eyebrows furrow to a strained, confused expression. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says. He still hasn’t moved out from the bathroom door frame.

“They’re still wrong, but,” Lance pauses. He looks at Keith pointedly; there’s no way they’re friends. Keith’s standing in the doorway like an obstacle, an obstacle that’s paying ardent attention to his troubles. “I don’t know why I’m right.”

Keith strains an expression, as if it takes a monumental effort to wear anything but confusion on his face. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, curt and frustrated. “You could actually tell me what’s bothering you.”

For a moment, Lance actually considers telling Keith what the problem is. Then, he remembers that Keith’s the problem, and he’s already spent enough time talking to Keith about Keith even in the vaguest of terms.

“Or I could not!” Lance says. He dodges around Keith, and tries to escape the bathroom without looking like he was fleeing. “Bathroom’s open now!”

“Lance!” Keith calls after him, but Lance has already escaped.

* * *

He manages to avoid Keith well for the next few days. It’s only a tragedy at the hands of training schedules that Lance runs into him.

After failing to cajole Pidge into switching training times, Lance is stuck in a room with the person he’s trying to avoid. Keith’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s staring, and Lance feels flustered for him.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Keith states it like it’s a fact. Which it is. But Lance hasn’t even put on his helmet, and Keith’s already foiling his avoidance plan.

“No I haven’t,” Lance lies brilliantly. He jostles his helmet onto his head, the back not quite clicking in properly. It takes a couple rustles for it to click, and when it does, Keith’s gaze hasn’t moved.

Keith picks up one of the training pikes, and tosses it toward Lance. “I haven’t seen you in three days!” he says. “Except _once,_ and you _ran away from me-”_

Lance thought he’d been stealthy, that time.

“We’ve just been missing each other,” Lance picks up the training pike, always surprised at the weight of the thing. “Besides! I can’t be avoiding you, I’m here _now._ ”

Keith doesn’t look convinced. “You’re here because it’s mandatory,” he says.

Shrugging, Lance grips the pike at its balance point. It feels loose in his grasp, and no matter how many times he tries to adjust his grip he just can’t fix it.

“Doesn’t matter,” Lance says. Keith’s still waiting for a continuation; Lance opens his mouth as if to give him one. Instead of an answer, though, Lance tries to pike Keith in the side.

He would’ve hit him, too, had Keith not been Keith. Lance’s grip on the pike slips halfway through the joust, and the pointy end just as much as nudges the area a Keith-shaped blob once existed. Keith’s already jaunted away, nimble on his toes.

“Oh, come on!” Lance says, trying to find the balance point of the pike again. He misses it, over-adjusting his grip. He always seemed to do that, especially when training with Keith, and never realized until after it was too late.

Keith hasn’t taken as much of a stab at Lance; he holds his pike to the side, grip loose and fingers tapping on the edges. “You’re not paying attention,” he says. His brow pinches, and Lance makes another jab, if only to stop the confusing emotions splay on Keith’s face.

It’s another miss. The pike hits Keith this time, but not at the tip; the breadth glazes over Keith’s arm, and it just takes a sidestep to avoid it. It’s also enough of a jostle for Lance to completely lose his grip, and the pike clatters to the floor.

“Hey,” Keith says, and Lance huffs. He doesn’t want to hear the-- whatever emotion in Keith’s voice. Instead, he kicks the pike with his toe, and nearly stubs it.

Maybe avoiding Keith just made this get to him more. He should be putting all his energy into kicking Keith’s butt, but half of it’s expended on an existential crisis, and a third is trying to hide that, leaving whatever’s left to hold a weapon.

Giving up on all three of his current tasks, Lance kicks the pike again in frustration. It makes a single clanking sound on the floor, as Keith had found the balance point with his foot, stopping it from rolling.

Lance shouldn’t be so worked up about this, but he is, and he shouldn’t be so annoyed that Keith found the balance point so easily, but he is. He stares at the pike, and not Keith, and only knows Keith’s still there because of his foot on the weapon and the heavy sound of his breathing.

It’s immensely frustrating. He didn’t want to let the whole Keith-could-be-his-friend thing grate on him, but it’s like he’s being sucked out of an airlock. No other problem matters, and every inch of energy he has is spent clinging on to the wall so he doesn’t fall into the abyss of space.  

Keith did help him out of an airlock, once before, but that just makes Lance more frustrated.

“What’s your problem-” Keith tries again, but Lance cuts him off.

“We’re not friends!” Lance says. Keith falters, Lance can see it by his footing. The pike rolls from under him, back to Lance, and Lance takes the chance to look up.

He wants Keith to look angry, but instead, he just looks confused. Maybe there’s anger somewhere under the surface, but Lance can’t find it. He looks at the pike again, then snatches it up in a hasty maneuver.

“I don’t need your- your- whatever,” Lance says. He finds the balance point of the pike now, but he doesn’t have the energy to point it at Keith. Instead, he lets it klang to the ground again.

“My _whatever_.”

“Yeah, your- your-” Lance starts. He motions again, at Keith’s general figure. He looks unguarded, but not unprepared- like he’s ready to parry for a dodgeable attack, but not ready enough to return fire. “Whatever,” Lance says.

Turning on his heel, he walks toward the door with what he hopes appears as a level-headed purpose. He nearly trips over his own two feet on the way out, and tries to cover it as a stomp. When the sliding doors close behind them, he lets out a sharp breath, and then takes in an even bigger one before slinking speedily to his room.

* * *

Lance doesn’t want to feel bad about this. He shouldn’t have to feel bad about this. They weren’t friends in the first place. Keith didn’t even look mad-- at worst, he could pass as miffed at his own confusion. Lance didn’t do anything _wrong,_ he just… got frustrated and told Keith the truth about absolutely everything.

Sighing, Lance flops on his bed. The Altean bed doesn’t have the right dramatic fwoof to it, but he does sink into the bed, the sheets rubbing against his cheek. He complained about the thread count the first day, even though the sheets were better than any of the sheets back at the Garrison.

He focuses on that, instead of the fact of the matter.

The fact of the matter is Lance feels terrible.

Everyone was right about the whole friendship debacle. Keith thought they were friends, and Lance thought they were rivals, but Keith was probably closer to the truth.

Lance doesn’t even know what rivals means anymore. He’s beat Keith at things- the important things. The cool, heroic things. He’s definitely struck up more conversations with aliens, though Keith didn’t really aim for that. And he’s beat Keith at racing, when Lance eggs him on, and swordfighting, also when Lance eggs him on.

Was it _really_ winning if he let Keith’s anger get the best of him? He wants it to be really winning. He really wants to be right on that, but because he wants it so badly, he’s probably wrong. Lance lets out another huff of air and turns over in his bed, face planted on his pillow.

And Keith, at the end of the day, sees- saw- him as a friend. Lance isn’t a threat to him at all, and that’s what bothers Lance the most. Keith isn’t as annoying as Lance makes him out to be; what actually sits under his skin is Keith not being his rival.

Lance, very bregrudenly, likes Keith. Maybe really likes Keith. Keith’s generally decent to be around, and he even tried helplessly to listen to Lance complain about Keith. There were a lot of signs of friendship that Lance ignored, really, to protect his fragile ego. And he was really only just getting the memo now, once he'd burned all his bridges.

They probably were friends, past tense required. Lance just didn’t want to admit it, because that somehow got in the way of them being rivals. And that strikes his core more than anything, because he needs to beat Keith to prove- to prove _something._ To prove himself. And he doesn’t want to open up that line of thinking.

He should’ve really saved that shaken-to-the-core hyperbole for whatever it is he’s feeling now. Because now he’ll have to avoid Keith for, probably, the end of time, and he has no idea how he’ll manage that.

* * *

The universe has it out for Lance, as he can’t even avoid Keith for even two hours.

Allura herds the five of them into the same room, and Lance skirts the edge of it. Hunk’s probably looking at him- no, one quick glance and he’s definitely looking at him. Lance shrugs very casually in response, but his shoulder feels stiff and his expression stiffer.

Hunk looks pained, an expression Lance assumes is half part sympathy and half part second-hand embarrassment, then motions to Allura with his chin.

The mission sounds simple enough- they need some data drives off of Galra supply ships. There’s a couple of different ships the drives could be on, so they're splitting up into groups.

There’s only one details that sets him off. Waving a floppy hand, Lance questions, “Wait, why do I have to go with Keith?”

From the corner of his eye, Lance can see Keith wince. He crosses his arms around his chest, and he’s been rather unopposed to this whole arrangement. Keith should be the one to throw a fit- Lance was the jerk in their argument.

Though he probably is still a jerk now, Lance realizes. “Uh,” he says. “I mean…”

“There’s three possible ships the data drive’s on,” Allura says. It sounds like she’s said this before- she probably has. Lance should really pay better attention. “Our best bet is using Pidge, but we need to attack all the ships at once- so we’re sending Pidge to one, and splitting the rest of the group into teams. One lion each, you need to be discrete getting in and out.”

Lance rolls his eyes; that wasn’t the question. He could easily just be paired with Hunk. He opens his mouth, but then closes it again; he doesn’t want Keith to wince. He should probably handle this very gingerly, which would take a considerable amount of effort.

Of course, Allura takes that as approval, and begins to re-explain the rest of the mission.

* * *

Lance presses his back against the wall. Footsteps fall in the hallway, and Lance has no idea where. They echo everywhere, metallic clangs reverberating off the narrow ship walls. He thought it was the echoes that make them all-encompassing, but now, he thinks that’s just slightly wrong. There’s just more than one set of footprints, in more than one hall.

Stealth isn’t his forte- it’s not blazes of glory, or clever espionage, or anything fun. But it’s still what’s needed, especially here, and for whatever reason, Keith’s not getting it.

Keith, in fact, looks ready to lunge. He grips his bayard in a tight fist, and his eyes survey the hall. Lance wants to yell- they’re supposed to be stealthy, not stabby- but he can’t. Not unless he wants to break the stealthy rule himself.

Frustrated, Lance kicks his own bayard toward Keith. It grazes the toe of his boot, ricocheting off and hitting the nearby wall. It doesn’t make a loud noise, only a soft thunk of metal, but it’s an important noise. Keith stops in his tracks, following the line of motion of the bayard back to Lance.

Lance wildly waves his hands around, trying to properly enunciate how terribly frustrating Keith is being. They’re cornered-- but not intentionally. If the enemy knows where they are, they’d have used the paladins’ terrible positioning to their advantage. Since they haven’t made a move, they don’t have a clue.

With a sharp intake of breath, Lance stops gesticulating everywhere and places a single finger on his lips. He huffs as aggressively as he can while still keeping quiet. That should shush Keith properly-- hopefully.

And, to his surprise, it actually does.

Keith kneels down on the ground, gingerly touching the handle of Lance’s bayard. He flings it across the hall, and it stops just in front of Lance. Rolling his eyes at Keith’s annoyingly decent- well, perfect- precision, Lance picks up the bayard, pointing with it down the hall.

As long as they could stay out of sight of the sentries, they could get out of this mess. They could get out of this mess slightly undetected-- just as Allura had wanted.

Maybe she wanted it more than slightly undetected, but she’ll have to live with second best.  

When Lance edges into the hallway, sure the guards have passed, Keith follows him. He waits until Lance lightly toes around the hallway, keeping the same pace and the same discretion. For a second, Lance thinks maybe Keith’ll impress him with some terrifyingly and frustratingly skilled stealth, but he just follows Lance’s lead.

Lance smirks, smug. Maybe Keith didn’t see him as a threat in rivalry-- but he didn’t think of him as incompetent everywhere. And it isn’t exactly what Lance wants, since he wants a spurned rivalry. But maybe he didn’t have the best judgement.

The halls of the ship twist in pretzel-like mazes, but the rounded door of the cargo bay is unmistakeable.

“Thanks,” Keith says, with a twist of a smile. Lance laughs, and it sounds too reedy and high-pitched in his own ears. He laughs again to cover that horrible embarrassment up, and his hand slips on the handle of the door.

After refocusing his efforts to the door, it slides open. The Red Lion sits in the cargo bay of the ship, unharmed, and since Keith still has the data drive secured in his hand, it’s free sailing from there.

“Yeah, you better be thankful,” Lance returns, only a tad late to the rebound.

Lance expects something from Keith-- a smile again-- but that’s not what he gets. With an unsteady jerk of his head, Keith turns to Lance, and stares straight past him-- back at the door.

Before Lance could contemplate how annoyed that response makes him, a bright red light surrounds them. An alarm, like the sound of a low-pitched whale, blares around them. Lance nearly falls over right from that.

“Maybe that thanks was too early,” Keith says. Alarms blare around them, and Keith’s already running ahead of him and to the Red Lion. Her maw is already opening, and Lance scampers after Keith.

Lance is barely inside the cockpit when it starts moving, and he careens toward the wall. If Keith says sorry, Lance doesn’t hear it, as it takes all his energy to keep upright. It would be much better if he had a seat, but he doesn’t, so he grips the dashboard with white-knuckled hands.

To his credit, Keith manages feats that look impossible-- dodging lasers, pinpointing precision attacks, barrel rolling out of barely perceivable dangers. Lance wants to say it’s luck that gets them out of there, but it isn’t, it’s Keith.

As they reach the wormhole, silence falls in the cockpit. Lance hadn’t realized how loud it was, in the clambering of the battle, until there’s only awkward air between them.

Lance huffs, and it sounds too relieved-- it’s almost a laugh. “It would’ve been worse if you’d’ve alerted the guards, so I still deserve the thank you,” Lance says.

Keith provides an expecting look, and it gives the guise of patience. Of course, since, Keith has no patience, it has to be a ruse, but Lance’ll throw Keith a bone and fall for it.

“...but thanks for blasting us out of there,” he continues. Keith gives Lance another smile, the one he’d wanted from before, and Lance grumbles to hide his own fluster. He has a terrible feeling about, well, his terrible bubbling realizations, and he tries not to look at Keith for the rest of the fly back.

* * *

The awkward mood continues, past the cockpit. Lance ignores Keith, who’s mood gradually sours with Lance’s peevishness. By the time they get back, Keith’s annoyed again. Instead of bringing Allura the data drive himself, he hands it off to Shiro, and returns to the Red Lion.

Lance hasn’t left the bay, but there’s not much else to do. He eyes the door, but doesn’t make a run for it. It feels like there’s something he should do-- or say.

And that thing’s probably apologize for the whole friendship thing.

“Wait,” Lance says.

Keith has a hand on the Red Lion’s paw; he isn’t the one leaving, Lance is. Lance shifts his weight between both feet, uneasy.

“Sorry, I’ve been kind of being a jerk,” Lane says. He tries to find something on Keith to focus on that isn’t his stare, but everything seems to pull him toward Keith’s eyes.

“A jerk,” Keith repeats. He sounds questioning, but Lance knows he’s not questioning that Lance is a jerk. More of his extent of jerkness.

Lance tries to meet Keith’s eyes, but not meet Keith’s eyes. If he focuses right above them, he can fake his way out of this. “Yeah.”

Silence stretches between them, and Lance bounces on the balls of his feet. He shouldn’t be nervous about this, but he is.

Lance says, “I just, I’ve figured it out.”

Lance hates the fact that he can follow Keith’s shift in expression, from pinpoint concentration to a kind of helpless confusion. Curiosity’s under that, too, as pinpoint and alert as the concentration was.

“I, um,” Lance starts. Keith’s gaze finds him again, and Lance finally stops avoiding it.

“I like you,” Lance says.

This time, Lance can’t follow Keith’s expression. His eyes widen, realization set somewhere behind them, like he’s just seen the center of the galaxy and found the answer to everything in it.

Stuttering the rest of his thoughts, Lance starts, “I-I mean, we’re-”

And Lance cuts off, because Keith steps forward and kisses him. His arms lock in place, leaving his hands mid-gesture and his fingers frozen like icicles. Eyes wide and expression shocked, Lance can’t even pass his judgement on Keith’s kiss before he’s pulled away.

He hadn’t seen that coming. Not even for two seconds, or the moment Keith lunged, had Lance seen that coming, and he’s left frozen and lost in processing it. He’d only just figured out they were friends. Keith seems to be five steps ahead of him, and misconstrued this whole thing, even though Lance doesn’t exactly mind.

Keith’s hand presses on Lance’s cheek, warm and retreating, and Lance blinks rapidly. His hand retreats, but the warmth stays.

“We’re friends,” Lance finishes, pitifully.

Lance can't read Keith’s expression anymore. He thought he had some grounding, but he's just a fish out of water with Keith five steps in front of him again. It’s pinched, almost guarded, and it’s not a very Keith expression at all.

“Uh,” Keith says. “I…”

Lance tries to speak, but he chokes a laugh instead.  

Placing a hand on Lance’s shoulder, Keith awkwardly pats his shoulder in some commiserating gesture. Another nervous laugh bubbles through Lance’s system, and he really should figure out a better way to respond.

He, however, doesn’t.

“I’ll just go,” Keith says.

Before Lance can laugh again, and ruin the moment even more, the door slams shut. Silence smothers the room. “Oh _man_ ,” he says, to try and fill the quiet. It doesn’t really work.

* * *

There’s one cause to all this misfortune, and it’s Hunk. Hunk and his initial friendship conversation- he had to know something about Keith’s horribly timed confession, didn’t he?

Maybe a tiny cause of it is Lance, too. Maybe more than a tiny bit. But he can worry about his own hand in his current predicament later, once he stews more, so he goes to Hunk first.

“Hunk, Keith’s _avoiding_ me,” Lance says.

Hunk’s fumbling with a wrench; his Lion had gotten hit during their last mission, and Hunk had been set on fixing her himself. It looks complicated, and Lance tries not to look at it.

“Uh, okay,” says Hunk. He turns back to his work, tongue sticking out in concentration.

Lance taps his fingers on the Lion’s paw. “I mean- we’re friends, right?”

“We’ve been friends since forever,” says Hunk.

Lance groans, and leans over the paw. Hunk’s trying to concentrate on his work, but Lance knows he’ll cave. There’s a script to it-- press a couple of buttons and Hunk’ll be concerned enough to shift his attention. “No, no, I mean, Keith and I, we’re friends, right?”

“Yes! You are, you-” Hunk narrows his eyes. The wrench is still in his hand, but he’s pointing it at Lance now.  “Lance, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Lance raises his arms.

Hunk rolls his eyes, and turns back to the Lion. Lance pouts, but leans on the paw again, his elbow balancing him.

“So do you think, uh,” Lance pauses. He scratches under his nose. This is a difficult statement that needs to utmost clarity. “Do you think Keith likes me?”

A spark flies from the Lion, and Hunk places goggles over his eyes. “You’re friends, of course he likes you,” Hunk says.

Not clear enough, apparently.

“No, no no, I mean,” Lance tries not to sound like a schoolkid on the playground. “I mean, like… likes me.”

Finally, Hunk sets the wrench down. He’s still clad in goggles, making him look bug-eyed. “You- what?”

“I mean- you knew, right? Like, the whole, you can’t tell me it’s because Keith’s like, head over heels-”

“I didn’t know that! He- uh-” Hunk finally takes off the goggles, too. He’s concentrating fully on Lance’s dilemma, eyebrows strained and thinking. “He’s just- he’s complained about you?”

“Hah- what?!” Lance yells.

“Hey don’t get like that,” Hunk appeases, two hands in front of him. “You complain about him _all the time-_ ”

Not technically wrong, but not the point. Lance pulls a hand down his face. “That’s not- that’s- for another day,” he starts. He’s trying not to raise his voice too much. “He just kissed me!”

Hunk provides an adequately gobsmacked look- it would be funny outside of these circumstances. His frown pulls in just about every direction, and he reels back. “Wait- wait wait wait- what?!”

“See, so I think…” Lance pauses; this didn’t make sense. He thought Hunk should know about this; Hunk set this up in the first place. “Wait, why is this news to you? I thought you knew!”

“I didn’t!” Lance snorts, but Hunk seems sincere. Hunk shakes his head, and continues, “I swear, I- I mean, he _likes_ you, and he thinks… but I didn’t think he _liked_ you, he just…”

Lance taps his foot on the ground, nervous and waiting for an answer. Something sizzles inside the Lion, but it can’t be anything bad, since Hunk only gives it a passing glance. Maybe it is bad- but this situation is more bad.

“You’re going to have to figure this out yourself,” Hunk says. “I don’t- this isn’t my business.”

“Please! Hunk! Throw me a rope here-”

“-I just wanted you and him to get along! He was all confused about you being a jerk-”

“-what do you mean, all confused about it-”

Hunk places two hands on Lance’s shoulder, pushing him out of the room. “-Nope! Not talking to you, not going to talk, I’m ignoring you, now until, uh, now until the end of time,” Lance whines, but it doesn’t work. “Go be somewhere else, so I can ignore you better.”

“Hunk-”

“This is between you and Keith! I really shouldn’t have asked about it in the first place,” Hunk pauses, giving Lance a long hard look.

Lance gives his best kicked puppy look. He feels like a kicked puppy, so it isn’t too much of a stretch, but he wants that extra shot of pitifulness. Not just a kicked puppy, but a kicked puppy in the middle of a thunderstorm, in the biggest puddle. He rubs under his nose, and kicks softly at the ground.

There’s specific moments where Hunk’s resolution breaks. First, it’s a sad shake of the head; then, when Lance still looks terribly dejected, a sigh. Finally, Hunk clasps his shoulder, and stops trying to shove him out of the room.

“Do you like him?” Hunk finally asks.

Laughing frantically, Lance shoots back, “Why would you ask that?!”

“Why wouldn’t I ask that?”

That’s probably fair.

“Just talk to him,” Hunk says. Lance thinks, at first, Hunk’s just throwing him the smallest, tiniest bone imaginable, but Hunk looks a bit too serious for that to be the case. “Give him some space and try to- I don’t know, figure out how you feel about it?”

Lance, unfortunately, already knows how he feels about it. And he feels like he’s already messed this all up. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll… okay.”

* * *

Lance intends to gently ease Keith into conversation; he needs to emulate someone that’s not Lance. He’s been putting his foot in his mouth as is, so maybe he should emulate Hunk’s hedging conversations, or Allura’s direct bluntness, or Coran’s rambling.

He thinks he has a plan- he needs to be subtle. Ease his way into it. He’s found Keith in the training room, and he looks cornered, so Lance should probably gently ease Keith into it.

“How long have you liked me?” Lance asks instead.

The cornered look shifts to annoyance. Keith’s holding himself up with the training pike in one hand, leaning his weight on it. His fingers tighten around the pike, and Lance tries not to concentrate too much on it.

“I mean, oh man, I know I’m irresistible,” Lance continues, all plans of proper person emulation out the window. He laughs, and it’s a nervous laugh, bubbling through his throat in a desperate chance to escape the sinking ship of Lance.

“I’m like- the best. So how long have you been completely head over heels for me?”

He’s put his foot in his mouth, and talked through it, like nothing was the matter. Lance tries to look at Keith; Keith’s looking toward the door. Lance is fully expecting an escape maneuver, but Keith is always full of surprises.

“Since I kissed you,” Keith says.

“So it was love at first… wait,” Lance stops. “Wait, what?!”

“I didn’t figure it out until then,” Keith adds. “I mean…” He looks like he’s debating something; his eyebrows pinch together. “I liked you before, but I hadn’t…”

Lance grins wide, and Keith groans. He rolls his eyes, looking miffed, “Is this just going to be you asking for compliments, because-”

“-I like you too,” Lance says.

Keith’s set the pike down to the ground; maybe he’s dropped it. Lance looks back to him, and Keith’s eyes have gone wide and his mouth’s open, just slightly so.

“I think I liked you first,” Lance continues. What a thing to beat Keith at; not that beating Keith’s how he wants to tally his accomplishments. At least not anymore. “That’s- that’s just great.”

Keith hasn’t said anything, and it’s making him nervous. He bounces from foot to foot, grin wide on his face, and he hopes it’s infectious.

It is; Keith’s frown edges to a grin, and he sighs in relief. Before he can say anything, Lance has an arm around his shoulder, knocking the two of their shoulders together.

As soon as he’s sure Keith’s no longer miffed, Lance says, “So how did that even work? You confessed because I confessed but I didn’t really confess-”

Keith knocks Lance in the shoulder lightly; he’s laughing, but trying to look perturbed. The look falls apart fast, so Lance lets Keith have the space to respond.

“Don’t overthink yourself,” Keith says, and Lance is laughing again; that’s not, exactly, an easy task.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my drafts since August first, jeez. (which explains a lot of similar themes to past works, haha.) The title's just the title of a fitting Bastille song.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you want to hmu, my twitter's at sine_tron, and my tumblr's at sinelanguage.


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